Halloween Return to Haddonfield
by Just Funning
Summary: This story ignores Resurrection and acts as a direct sequel to H20. It's Halloween and John Tate, Laurie Strode's son, and his wife Molly travel to Haddonfield, where some enterprising entrepreneurs have opened up the old Myers house for tourists. However, they may just awaken something evil.


_I do not own Halloween or any of the characters herein._

Halloween: Return to Haddonfield

Crisp autumn leaves scuttled like chattering rats around John Tate's feet. Next to him, his wife Molly took his hand. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

He smiled at her and nodded, and the two stepped off the curb and started across the street to the rundown house with the crowd gathered out front.

"We could just go back to the hotel and watch _Hocus Pocus_ on cable," she said, the chill air lifting her blonde curls and making them dance about her face.

John shook his head. "No, I have to do this. Not just for myself, but for my mother. She lost so much."

"She's not the only one," Molly murmured.

Squeezing his wife's hand, John silently chastised himself for not being more sensitive. Molly was right; they'd both lost friends the autumn of 1998 when John's uncle, Michael Myers, had paid an unexpected visit to Hillcrest Academy on Halloween night. He would likely have killed John and Molly as well if John's mother hadn't saved them. She'd risked her life to fight off Michael, ultimately beheading the maniac.

And yet she'd died herself less than a year later from a stroke. John had no doubt it was because of the lifetime of stress she'd endured. So in the end, even though he was already dead, Michael Myers still managed to kill his younger sister.

They made it to the opposite sidewalk and stopped, staring at the Myers house. This was the first time John had ever laid eyes on it, the first time he'd ever been to his mother's hometown of Haddonfield in fact, but his mother had described the place in such detail that he felt a stab of recognition seeing the peeling white paint, the sagging porch overhang, the two sets of double windows on the second floor. He'd never been here, but it felt like a homecoming nonetheless. Something inevitable that his life had been leading toward since his birth.

"I still can't believe they're doing this," Molly said, watching as people went up the steps and handed cash to a young man who stood by the front door.

John laughed. "When I got the email from Ronny saying he'd found out about this on the 'net, I thought he was joking. I don't know why we should be surprised though. People love a freak show; they get off on dissecting the tragedies of others."

"Ghouls if you ask me. What kind of person pays money to spend Halloween night in a house just because it was the home of a notorious serial killer?"

"Well, we are," John said, holding up the two folded twenties in his right hand.

"I'm only here because you dragged me along. I'm still not entirely clear on why you're here. Your mother's life was wrecked because of the trauma of what her brother did to her. I don't want to see the same thing happen to you."

"I don't want that either, and that's why I had to come. I can't explain it, but I feel like I can get some kind of closure by being here. Finally put all this behind me and move on from the nightmare."

Though Molly didn't say anything, she gave him that look of hers that said she knew he was holding something back from her.

Perceptive woman. John had studied the website that had been created for tonight's event, and the organizers had hired a medium that planned to hold a séance, reaching out to Michael's victims from the massacres in 78 and 98. A heartless tacky ploy to possibly bring in family members of those who'd lost their lives.

A ploy that had worked for John. He wasn't sure he believed in that kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo (though after everything his family had been through with his uncle, he didn't rule anything out), but he couldn't shake the thought that he could possibly talk to his mother one more time. He'd lost her so suddenly, he hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

They took their place at the back of a line moving down the walkway to the front steps. The walkway was lined on either side with crudely carved jack-o'-lanterns, their crooked grins revealing teeth of flame.

"I'm surprised Ronny didn't want to come," Molly said. "I mean, this would have been great research for those grisly horror books he writes."

"I know, and I think he'd be here except his wife wouldn't let him."

"Smart lady. Maybe I should have gotten her to talk some sense into you."

"We won't stay long, I just want to check things out."

The line had progressed quickly so that they were now on the porch, the boards bowing under their feet. John handed over the payment to the teenaged boy in the Creed T-shirt and then they were through the door into a small foyer with a narrow staircase directly in front of them. A sign at the foot of the stairs read "Judith Myers' Bedroom This Way" and had an arrow pointing up. That seemed to be the first stop for most people.

Instead of following the crowd upstairs to the room where an aunt John had never met was murdered by an uncle he wished he'd never met, he led Molly to the right into a small living room. A dozen people milled about, and from somewhere the song "Mr. Sandman" played softly. The only furniture in the space was a low round coffee table. A woman in a flowing red dress, her black hair twisted into a single braid that fell over her left shoulder, sat cross-legged in front of the table. Her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly, a soft hum issuing from her lips. On the surface, a half dozen candles burned, their wicks flickering in the breeze caused by the movement of everyone in the room. There were two other items on the tabletop, and these items immediately drew John's attention and made him feel as if the air had turned to thick molasses in his throat.

"This must be where they are holding the séance," Molly said, not noticing her husband's sudden discomfort.

Letting go of Molly's hand, John stepped toward the coffee table. "Why are those here?" he said in a hoarse croak.

Several people in the room shushed him. A middle-aged woman wearing a jogging suit pointed at the woman in red and said in a whisper, "She's in a trance, reaching out into the realm of the dead."

Heedless of the requests for quiet, John raised his voice. "I said, why are those here?"

Molly grabbed his arm. "John, what's gotten into— _oh_!"

She had spotted the items on the table that had upset John so. A blank white Halloween mask with a tuft of tangled brown hair, and a gleaming butcher knife.

"They're props to help her focus," said the woman in the jogging suit. "So she can call on the right spirit."

"What spirit?"

"Michael Myers, of course. She's going to channel him."

"You people are fucking insane!" John roared. "Why would you want to channel the spirit of a deranged psychopath?"

"To find out why he did it," said a man with a scraggly goat-tee and thick-framed glasses.

"You were right," John said to his wife. "This is just sick. We shouldn't have come."

John reached down and snatched the mask and knife off the table, meaning to toss them in the trash on the way out, and at that moment a wind sprang up inside the room as if someone had turned on an industrial fan, fluttering the curtains and extinguishing the candles. John cried out, an intense cramp in his gut doubling him over…

…and then he was gone.

The candles were out, but a lamp burned in the corner of the room and by its light Molly watched her husband pull the Halloween mask over his head.

"John, what are you doing?"

Instead of answering, he suddenly lashed out with the knife and buried it in the medium's throat. Her eyes sprang open and she seemed to be trying to scream, but only a garbled gagging sound emerged, as well as copious amounts of blood.

For a few seconds, everyone in the room froze, as if unsure if this were real or part of the show they'd paid to see. Then the woman in the jogging suit screamed and that broke the paralysis that had afflicted everyone.

Pandemonium broke out, people screaming and shoving and knocking one another over to get out of the room. Molly saw her husband yank the knife free of the medium's throat, the woman slumping forward onto the table, her blood pooling like dark wine beneath her head. John started slashing indiscriminately, slicing at anyone within his reach. He cut a few jugulars, sank the blade into a few stomachs, four or five dead before they could make their way clear of the room. Including the man with the goat-tee and glasses.

Molly wasn't sure what to do. Her mind balk at the scene unfolding before her. She'd known her husband since high school; he was a gentle man, not capable of this kind of violence. How could this be happening?

Before she had time to further contemplate the question, another inexplicable wind tore through the room and the bulb in the lamp exploded. Molly screamed, collapsing to the hardwood floor…

…and then she was gone.

Laurie Stroke stood up, wearing Molly's body like a suit.

As if sensing her presence, Michael turned toward her suddenly, the bloody knife clenched in his fist. Except for the dead and injured, the room had cleared, and the two stood staring at one another like two outlaws from the old West preparing for a duel.

"Hello, Michael," Laurie said after a moment of silence. "I knew this wasn't over."

Michael lunged for her, but she dodged him, dropping to the floor, rolling, then leaping back up on the far side of the coffee table. Without looking back but knowing her brother was in pursuit, she bolted through the dining room into the small kitchen. Alerted by the screams and fleeing patrons, the house had emptied and the back door was standing wide open. Laurie did not make for it, however. Instead she started pulling open drawers, looking for a weapon. To her dismay, she discovered the drawers were as empty as the house.

As Michael came bounding through the door, Laurie yanked out one of the drawers and tossed it at her brother. He batted it aside like it was a paper airplane. Having nowhere else to run, now she did rush out the back door, circling around to the front.

The crowd that had made the exodus from the house were gathered on the front lawn and in the street, many of them clinging to one another. When they saw Laurie rounding the corner, they moved back en masse. "What's going on?" yelled the man in the Creed T-shirt from the sidewalk.

"Get the hell out of here!" Laurie yelled back, making her way to the steps.

The crowd let out a collective scream when Michael came around the side of the house. The noise attracted him and he started toward the throng. Laurie picked up one of the jack-o'-lanterns and threw it at Michael's back. It struck him and splintered into pieces.

"Michael!" she screamed. "I'm the one you want. You tried to kill me your whole life and never succeeded. This is your last chance."

She had his attention now, and as he turned and started back toward her, she retreated into the house. She couldn't let him loose on the populace; she had to keep him contained here until she could dispatch him again.

Grief and doubt seized her heart. This was the spirit of her murderous brother, but it was housed in the body of her son. The only way she knew to send his spirit back to hell was to kill the body it possessed. But could she? Could she kill her own child?

Once through the front door, Laurie bounded up the stairs, following the signs to Judith Myer's bedroom. Where this whole nightmare had begun back in 1963. She scanned the room quickly for something she could use to defend herself. This was the only room in the house that had been properly furnished, a small bed and a vanity with mirror. Draped on the bed was a child's clown Halloween costume. Setting the scene.

Knowing that hesitation would mean death, Laurie crossed the room and punched her fist into the mirror, shattering the glass. She picked up the largest shard in her bleeding hand and went back to the door, hiding behind it. She clutched the glass shard to her chest, remembering John as a baby, the love she'd felt for him, the way they'd clung to each other for support after his father walked out on them. The years at Hillcrest, the way their roles reversed every October and he'd been the one parenting her through the trauma she had tried to drown in alcohol. He'd always been such a good kid, strong and compassionate. He didn't deserve this.

But Judith hadn't deserved what happened to her, or Laurie herself. Certainly not those caught in the crossfire. People like Annie and Lynda and Will and even Loomis. They were all casualties of Michael's inhuman wrath, and Laurie was the last gatekeeper. There was no one else.

So when Michael came through the door, she didn't allow herself time to think; she just acted. She kicked the door closed, and when Michael turned toward her, she plunged the mirror shard deep into his gut, dragging it up toward his chest as if unzipping him. His intestines slid out like snakes, dropping in loops on the floor at their feet. "Happy Halloween, fucker!" she hissed.

John resurfaced for just a moment, staring into his wife's eyes but recognizing it wasn't Molly before him. It was his mother. Keri Tate to some, Laurie Strode to others.

He had come here tonight hoping to make contact with her one final time, but this wasn't what he'd imagined at all.

He wanted to tell her that he understood and he loved her, but he hadn't the strength. The world went gray around the edges and he felt himself falling…

…and then he was gone.

Laurie stared down at the body of her dead brother, her dead son. She was both winner and loser of this battle. A war of conflicting emotions erupted inside of her, and white-hot pain enveloped her like an Iron Maiden. She wanted to scream out her pain…

…and then she was gone.

Molly resurfaced to find herself staring down at her husband's disemboweled body. She dropped the shard. It hit the floor and broke into smaller shards, all reflecting the grisly scene. She fell to her knees next to John, pulling the mask off of his head and tossing it aside.

Outside sirens filled the night, but they weren't as loud as Molly's screams.


End file.
